


irreplaceable

by SerpentineJ



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, there are mentions of monster trucks, yes this is a cancer-fic, you can tell where it diverges from canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 20:57:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4720172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerpentineJ/pseuds/SerpentineJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I- I need you to tell me that you love me." Wilson gasps, sounding like there's water in his lungs, and House suddenly can't breathe, like someone's taken his vocal cords and strung them up around his ears and sucked all the air out of his chest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	irreplaceable

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: so i'm just really in the mood for angsty hilson ok i just watched the finale and i want to throw something

Dinner starts well.

They talk, smiling like fools, heads leaned together towards the middle of the table, and House sees the way the candlelight flickers off the bridge of Wilson's nose, the way it dances across his bottom lip and sends shards like honey aglow in his warm, warm eyes, and he wants to take this moment and preserve it, as cliche as it sounds- he wants to stop the world for a minute, to keep everything as it is. No cancer, no chemo, no arguments.

House hears the table next to them murmuring about what a cute couple he and Wilson are.

He smiles to himself.

~~~~~~

Of course, everything goes to shit soon after- Wilson accuses him of conning him into taking more chemo and storms out, and House honestly doesn't know if he is or not. He can't tell- he is so hardwired to lie and cheat and manipulate to get what he wants, and what he wants right now is for Wilson to be there as long as House can wring out of the Grim fucking Reaper.

Is he capable of acting unselfishly?

Probably not, he reflects as he makes his way to the car- he can see Wilson inside, hands on his face, and as House draws closer, peers in the window, he sees Wilson is crying.

He opens the car door.

The seat is firm, suede, but all House can see is James's profile- in all their years of friendship, he's seen the other man angry, happy, exhilerated, disappointed, mischevious, downright furious, but House has never seen him quite like this, exposed and raw and so damn  _pathetic_  it makes him want to claw at his own adam's apple to scrape away the feeling of bile in the back of his throat at the thought that maybe he's not friend Wilson deserves. Maybe someone else should be sitting here: someone who could wrap their arms around him and whisper platitudes and reassurances in his hair, someone whose shoulder Wilson could cry on.

Can House be that person?

"Look at you." He murmurs. "You don't want to die."

Wilson sputters, "Of course I don't want to die!"

"Well then, fight."

"I did!" James chokes, voice damp and soggy with tears. "I tried."

"One time." House retaliates, and he pushes down any apprehension at provoking his dying best friend, because if Wilson decides to live then it will be worth any discomfort, any manipulation, any strain on their relationship- the first and foremost important thing is that Wilson is  _here_ , warm and alive, telling him he's an idiot.

"House," James says, "get out of my car."

Greg looks at him imploringly. "You don't have to just accept this." He replies.

"Yes, I do have to accept this. I have five months to live, and you're making me go through this alone!" Wilson shouts, growls, voice soaked in violent, roiling anger, frustration. "I'm pissed because I'm dying, and it's not  _fair_."

Greg doesn't say anything.

"And I need- I need a friend." He continues. He's still hiccuping through his sobs, and it's such a profound moment of genuine weakness that House's exremities fill with something uncomfortably identifiable. "I need to know that you're there. I need- I need you to tell me that my life was worthwile, and I- I need you to tell me that you love me." Wilson gasps, sounding like there's water in his lungs, and House suddenly can't breathe, like someone's taken his vocal cords and strung them up around his ears and sucked all the air out of his chest.

"I'm not going to say that unless you fight." He replies hoarsely, and he hardly believes the words coming out of his own damn mouth because he knows he'd tell Wilson he loves him in a second, in a moment if the entirety of everything didn't hang on this play, on this manipulation, and there's a part of him that wants to grab his refusal out of the air and crumple them in his hands when he sees the betrayal in Wilson's stupidly soft eyes- he averts his gaze and gets out of the car instead, feels his heart hardening as he limps away.

The sharp sting of acid- revulsion, anger, disgust at himself- rises in the back of his throat, but he swallows viciously and doesn't look back.

~~~~~~

Was it a mistake?

House's own words run around his mind all afternoon, like a hyperactive mouse on a squeaky wheel- it keeps distracting him from everything. He can't work, can't play, can't even annoy someone else because it all reminds him of James.

Wilson. It's a drumbeat on his temporal lobe.

Wilson. Wilson. Wilson.

I need you to tell me that you love me.

Taub interrupts his obsessive train of thought with something menial, asks about Wilson- House mutters something about being done with him, even though he knows he's most definitely not. He'll never be done with Wilson. He is done with Stacy, done with Cuddy- he'd driven all of them away, consiously or not, and they had gotten tired of his shit and left.

Wilson never had.

House had done everything to him- pissed off his girlfriends, indirectly destroyed two of his marriages, stolen his food, started prank wars, cheated on bets, stalked him, accidentally gotten Amber killed, nearly gotten him fired, and James had never left. He'd tried, but it never lasted- they were like planets, constantly in each other's orbit, a magnetic attraction between them that was stronger than anything House had experienced.

He had wanted Stacy. He had wanted Lisa.

He needs James.

House drops his head on his desk with a loud thud.

~~~~~~

It surprises him that Wilson knocks on his door.

House doesn't know it's James at first- his fingers spin something morose on his piano, strains of painful hope twisting their way through the hallways and seeping into the walls of his dark, dead apartment. He wonders why he doesn't get more noise complaints from his neighbors.

When James- though he doesn't know it's James at the time- raps at the entrance, House says, "Not home!" loudly, because he's really not in the mood to deal with Jehovah's Witnesses right now, but Wilson calls out from behind the wood and his fingers still over the black-and-white keys.

James is definitely a better friend than he deserves.

He opens the door.

"House." Wilson says. "I'm ready to start the next round of chemo."

Greg frowns. "Why?"

"Because... you need me, and I don't think that's a bad thing anymore."

Of course, quintessinal Wilson. Always thinking of others, self-sacrificing to the bitter end, and House knows in that moment what he has to do.

"No." He says. "You're the only one I listen to. The last couple of days I didn't, and I almost killed my patient. So I think it's time for me to accept that you're just smarter than I am."

James looks sideways at him, pauses. "Are you really okay that there's only five months left?"

House takes a breath. "No." He admits. "But it's better than nothing."

"Um. How do we start?"

"There's a monster truck rally on."

"Thank God. Got any Oreos?"

~~~~~~

"I lied, you know." House crunches on another cookie. They're properly buzzed by now, two tumblers and a mostly-empty canter of scotch on the coffee table, and they've gone through at least a box and a half of double-stuffed oreos. Monster trucks rev and smash on the television screen. Wilson is relaxed, arm slung casually around House's shoulders, shoe-less feet propped up- his side is pressed against House, warm and soft, and their knees are nearly touching.

James looks at him. He's not so drunk that he's overy inebrieted, just enough to lift his inhibitions ever so slightly.

"About what?" He asks and licks the cream off another cookie.

Greg sighs. Okay, he's a little more drunk.

"About the whole 'I won't say I love you' thing." He mutters- apparently his rational side has decided, well, Wilson is dying- what's the worst damage he can do?

James is staring at him now, all attention diverted from the television.

"What..." He begins, "are you saying?" He sounds entirely too unsurprised, just slightly cautious.

House scowls. "You know what I mean, you idiot." He mutters. "You've always known what I mean. Even that time I told you that I liked Sam."

Wilson rolls his eyes- his left arm is still slung around House, and it's very distracting, a warm weight of a reminder of the closeness that remains between them. Greg slumps a little more (and if he leans into James, who's going to know? No-one.)

"Hah," he says, "actually, that wasn't exactly difficult to interpret. You hated her. I'm pretty sure she didn't like you much, either."

House huffs. "Yeah, well." He feels a little fuzzy, detatched because of the alcohol, as though he's someone watching himself talk to Wilson from a post floating above his head. "I do."

"Do? What?"

"You're gonna make me say it, aren't you."

Wilson's face is inches from his- he's alert, bright-eyed, even through the drink they've had.

"I am dying," he says. "I think I can make a few demands."

House rolls his eyes.

"Fine." He says. "I love you, you idiot."

Greg doesn't know who makes the first move- one moment they're looking at each other, probably like some disgustingly enamoured couple in a sappy romance novel, and the next their lips are pressed together.

There are no sparks, no fireworks- it's a little clumsy, and Wilson's nose keeps bumping his, but his mouth is soft and warm, like the rest of him, and his hand comes around to clutch at House's shoulder. Greg can feel his own lips are slightly chapped, and they must be abraisive on James's, because his feel as plump as they look- he lets his arm snake around until he's completely turned, ignoring the twinge in his leg, and when they seperate for air House is the one mostly on top.

They're both breathing hard. Wilson's cheeks are adorably flushed and his eyes are wide, the light from the television flickering off his face.

"Wow." He says. "Um."

Greg drops his face into the crook of Wilson's neck before glancing down at the other man's lap and raising an eyebrow. James blushes.

"Please." House chuckles. "Allow me."

They spend the rest of the night together, curled close on the couch, and Greg feels like he hasn't in years- a mixture of content and apprehensive, knowing this is exactly where he wants to be for the rest of his life while simultaneously letting the fact that James- that they- have only five months sink in, and he takes every measure to remember these moments exactly.

Time has a strange tendency of slipping away from them.

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: so i wanted to end this on a- i don't know how to describe it. You know, when you're watching a show or a movie, and the end is coming? And in the final scene, everything pauses for a moment- the people on the screen stop and look at each other, or out at the landscape at wherever they are, and the cinementographer captures it in a second- the screen goes black and you know that there's a future ahead for those characters, that there's probably no happy ending for them, but you somehow get closure in keeping that scene in a little crystallized bubble in your chest, pretending that they stay there forever. That kind of note.
> 
> also this is the first written thing i've completed in what feels like forever and i still have so many things i have to write and comments would help a lot? or come to [my tumblr](http://serpentinej.tumblr.com) and kick me in the ask bc sometimes i need a glass of ice water in the face


End file.
